


Something Spooky This Way Comes

by Mothfinder_General



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 19:23:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mothfinder_General/pseuds/Mothfinder_General
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professor Sycamore and Lysandre end up in a ghost story written on accident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Spooky This Way Comes

Professor Sycamore finds a Ouija board at a marché aux puces and insists that he and Lysandre have a go on it. Lysandre initially protests, saying it’s the stupidest thing Professor Sycamore has ever asked him to do, but after they’ve sat down over a coffee and made a careful list of all the things Professor Sycamore has ever asked Lysandre to do, Lysandre concedes it is the fourteenth stupidest thing Professor Sycamore has ever asked him to do and agrees to give it a whirl.

 

They decide to use the board in Lysandre’s apartment, because it’s older and there’s a better chance of catching a ghost. (“Ghosts don’t exist,” says Lysandre. “Oh yeah,” says Professor Sycamore, “then how come all of my blue socks have been _mysteriously replaced with orange ones_?” Lysandre doesn’t answer straight away and when he does he mutters something about the fashion police carrying out random raids on repeat offenders.)

 

“Why can’t we ‘catch’ a ghost in your apartments?” asks Lysandre.

 

“My apartment was built eleven years ago, the only thing the ghost will ask about why our internet doesn’t make dialling noises when it connects,” says Professor Sycamore. “I want a ghost in a ruff and a pair of puffy shorts with its head all dangling off.”

 

“My apartment was built ninety years ago, not four hundred,” says Lysandre wearily. “You’re just going to get a ghost explaining why women can’t have the vote.”

 

Nevertheless, they set up the board in Lysandre’s apartment, one fuliginous night full of menacing vocabulary.

 

Professor Sycamore insists on laying down a black tablecloth and turning off all the lights. (There is no black tablecloth in Lysandre’s apartments and they have to use one of his black coats instead. “Your ghost had better not get ectoplasm on this,” says Lysandre severely, “I had it tailored.”) He lights a couple of tealights – he had to bring these himself, Lysandre is more of a long white candles sort of man.

 

“Fuckity little wicks,” mumbled Professor Sycamore, struggling with Lysandre’s lighter.

 

“Explain to me why we need candlelight,” says Lysandre.

 

“Candlelight is spooky,” says Professor Sycamore.

 

“That’s the reason?”

 

“ _Spoooooky_ ,” says Professor Sycamore, and clicks the lighter again crossly.

 

Lysandre cannot listen to the sound of his lighter being clicked without craving a cigarette, and he has started to rub his thumb over the joint on his middle finger that the cigarette would normally rest against. Rub, rub, rub.

 

“Alors, I think this is as spooky as it’s going to get,” says Professor Sycamore, and settles himself down.

 

“Sit down, Lysandre. Put your fingers on the wheely triangle.”

 

“Yes, Professor.”

 

“Only touch it lightly.”

 

“Yes, Professor.”

 

“I mean it, Lysandre. You can be heavy-handed sometimes.”

 

Lysandre smiles faintly. “Yes, Professor.”

 

They sit and stare at their fingers on the wheely triangle.

 

“Well,” says Lysandre, “this is boring. I thought ghosts were supposed to moan and wail and make the bed rock at night.”

 

Professor Sycamore gives him a sharp look. “None of your innuendoes, Lysandre. The spirit world is deadly serious.”

 

“Quelle horreur,” says Lysandre, who is bored and dying for a smoke and full of more innuendoes than his body has room for.

 

“Deadly serious,” says Professor Sycamore. “So serious… that they’re _dead_.”

 

Lysandre snorts.

 

At that moment, the wheely triange begins to move sideways.

 

“Are you doing that?” asks Professor Sycamore in a terrified whisper.

 

“No,” says Lysandre, who is definitely doing that.

 

“Oh mon dieu,” says Professor Sycamore. “Ask it a question! Quickly!”

 

“What’s your name?” Lysandre intones.

 

The wheely triangle moves. J. E. S. A. P. E. L. J. A. Q. U. E.

 

“Je s’appelle Jacques,” says Professor Sycamore. “Er… bon soir, Jacques. What do you want here?”

 

Lysandre decides to step up his game.

 

T. U. E. T. O. U. T. M. O. N. D. E.

 

Professor Sycamore looks up, his face pale. “Lysandre, are you sure you’re not doing this?”

 

“Now why would I want to kill everyone?” says Lysandre innocently. “Look, it’s moving again.”

 

Professor Sycamore looks down again.

 

T. U. L. E. P. R. E. M. I. E. R. G. U. S.

 

“Tu es le premier, ‘Gus’,” says Lysandre, who hates Professor Sycamore’s nickname and never uses it. “Well, that’s not very nice.”

 

“I don’t think I like this ghost,” Professor Sycamore quavers. “Why do you want to kill me, Jacques?”

 

The wheely triangle moves.

 

P. A. R. C. Q. J. E. S. U. I. S. E. U. L.

 

“Parce que je suis suel,” Professor Sycamore repeats anxiously.

 

E. T. T. E. S. S. E. X. Y.

 

“Oh, Lysandre, you fucking bastard!” yelps Professor Sycamore, and kicks him under the table, but Lysandre is already doubling up with laughter.

 

At that moment, the flames gutter and go out. So do the lights in the apartment, which have been dimmed. It turns out that there is quite a lot of different between dim, spooky lighting and no lighting at all.

 

“Lysandre, this isn’t funny,” says Professor Sycamore, in the dark.

 

“I didn’t do anything,” says Lysandre. “Your friend Jacques probably shorted the lights so he could come and breathe in your ear.”

 

“Oh, shut up. Go and find the fuse box. I suppose you know where your own fusebox is? You don’t have a special servant to change fuses for you?”

 

“Don’t be so grumpy,” says Lysandre, amused, then he hears the wheely triangle moving.

 

“You idiot,” he says affectionately, “I can hardly read your death threats in the dark, can I?”

 

“Lysandre?”

 

“Mm?”

 

“I’m not touching the triangle.”

 

Lysandre blinks into the darkness, then reaches out and grabs Professor Sycamore. It’s true, both of his hands are off the board – in fact they are tucked anxiously under his chin, and Lysandre takes them both. The wheely triangle is still moving.

 

“I wish I could see what it was saying,” whispers Professor Sycamore.

 

“I don’t,” whispers Lysandre. They sneak round the table and put their arms around each other. Professor Sycamore’s teeth are chattering.

 

“Wait,” says the Professor suddenly. “Isn’t this table set on a slight incline?”

 

Lysandre thinks. “Yes!” he exclaims, steaming with relief. “Yes, it is! A very, very slight mismatch in the floorboards, because I used antique wood when I redecorated. Hah!”

 

The wheely triangle keeps moving, and they hear it clatter to the floor.

 

“There,” says Lysandre, letting the Professor go. “It fell off the table because it wasn’t spelling anything, it was just rolling away.”

 

“Silly triangle,” Professor Sycamore quavers. “Could you, eh, could you go and turn the light on now?”

 

“Yes, of course,” says Lysandre, and starts to stroll off.

 

Later on, they will have very different accounts of what happens next.

 

Ambling masculinely through the jolly darkness, Lysandre manages to step on the sadly rolling wheely triangle and fall over, knocking over the table and sending the Ouija board flying (and hurting himself in the process, not that anyone cares, he adds later).

 

The wheely triangle goes skidding towards the window on the opposite end of the room, where the gibbous moon has just come out from under a cloud and has managed to elbow its way into the room.

 

Lysandre will claim that the surprise of the moonlight will cause him to stumble upright. He will claim that the newly-forming bruise on his arm, the clattering of the furniture, the mess of candlewax on the floor, the abrupt shock of pale white light suddenly in the black room like a night-bursting flower, will cause him to exclaim – rather poetically, admittedly, but not entirely impossibly – “Très brouillon.”

 

Professor Sycamore will claim that the white light comes through the curtains and Lysandre gasps with shock and stumbles upright. He will say he was not able to make out Lysandre’s expression in the dark (exactly, Lysandre will respond, so what are you talking about?) but he could hear his breath catching in his throat. Accustomed (he will not say) to always knowing the stance and tensions of Lysandre’s body when they are in the same room together, he will _know_ , although he will not be able to _see_ , that Lysandre stands facing the white light with his eyes wide, as if he has distinguished some form in it. He will claim that he hears Lysandre exclaim, in a horrified whisper, “ _Maman_?”

 

The moonlight retreats and Lysandre, amidst much swearing, goes down to where the fusebox lives and switch the lights on again. Professor Sycamore sheepishly tidies up the remains of their disastrous séance. They decide to go out to the cinema.

 

“But we’re not going to watch a horror film,” says Professor Sycamore firmly.

 

“No,” says Lysandre. They go to watch a musical.

 

The next week, Professor Sycamore presents Lysandre with a Banette puppet that he has found at a different marché aux puces. “The stall owner was very keen to get rid of it!” he says cheerfully.

 

“Oh for Arceus’ sake,” says Lysandre. They are sitting in a café having coffee and someone, somewhere, starts playing ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ on the piano.


End file.
